Necromancer Blood Surge Endgame Build (Season 2 Updated)

This is a guide to the Blood Surge PVE build in Diablo 4 (D4)! This is a necromancer build focused on using the Blood Surge core skill to deal AoE damage multiple times with Overpower to all nearby enemies! Read on to see a full list of Aspects, skills, best gems, and tips on playing the Blood Surge Necromancer!

Blood Surge Build Overview

Build Summary

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Summary		Skill Progression		Aspects & Affixes
Gems		Vampiric Powers		Paragon

Skills

Aspects & Uniques

Stats & Gems

Build Overview and Summary
Blood Surge		Tier: Focus: PVE Playstyle: Solo and Party
Active Skills
Passive Skills

Build Overview and Summary
Blood Surge		Tier: Focus: PVE Playstyle: Solo and Party
Aspects and Uniques
Tibault's Will Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul Aspect of Disobedience (Pants) Aspect of Shielding Storm (Helm) Protecting Aspect (Chest) Blood-bathed Aspect (Amulet) Sacrificial Aspect (Weapon) Cadaverous Aspect (Ring) Aspect of Rathma’s Chosen Offhand) Aspect of Untimely Death (Gloves) Eluding Aspect (Boots)

Build Overview and Summary
Blood Surge		Tier: Focus: PVE Playstyle: Solo and Party
Stat Priorities			Recommended Gems
・Overpower Damage ・Willpower ・Intelligence ・Damage Reduction while Fortified ・Armor ・All Healing ・Maximum Life ・Damage with Core ・Damage vs Close			Ruby (Weapon and Armor) Diamond (Jewelry)

This is a Necromancer build focusing on using Blood Surge to deal AoE damage to its vicinity. We also maximize Overpower as well as defensive stats such as armor and max HP to ensure that we can stay on the frontline without suffering any lethal attacks. The bulk of our damage comes from overpower and critical strikes. We prioritize Blood Skills and Melee skills as well as damage reduction to ensure that we can stay on the frontline and dish out several Blood Surges without difficulty.

Blood Surge Build Breakdown

Skill Progression

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Summary		Skill Progression		Aspects & Affixes
Gems		Vampiric Powers		Paragon

Active Skills

Skill		Upgrade Path
Reap (1 Point)	→	Enhanced Reap
Blood Surge (1 Points)	→	Enhanced Blood Surge	Paranormal Blood Surge
Blood Mist (1 Points)	→	Enhanced Blood Mist	Dreadful Blood Mist
Decrepify (1 Points)	→	Enhanced Decrepify	Abhorrent Decrepify
Corpse Tendrils (1 Points)	→	Enhanced Corpse Tendrils	Blighted Corpse Tendrils
Bone Storm (1 Points)	→	Prime Bone Storm	Supreme Bone Storm

Passive Skills

Blood Surge Solo Passives
Grim Harvest (3 Points)	Fueled by Death (3 Points)	Death's Embrace (3 Points)
Amplify Damage (3 Points)	Gruesome Mending (3 Points)	Coalesced Blood (3 Points)
Drain Vitality (3 Points)	Tides of Blood (3 Points)	Stand Alone (3 Points)
Memento Mori (3 Points)	Inspiring Leader (3 Points)	Unliving Energy (1 Point)
Imperfectly Balanced (3 Point)	Rathma's Vigor (1 Point)	-

Skill Progression Breakdown

Recommended Skill Progression
Lv.1	Lv.2	Lv.3	Lv.4	Lv.5
-	Reap	Enhanced Reap	Blood Surge	Enhanced Blood Surge
Lv.6	Lv.7	Lv.8	Lv.9	Lv.10
Paranormal Blood Surge	Unliving Energy	Imperfectly Balanced	Imperfectly Balanced	Imperfectly Balanced
Lv.11	Lv.12	Lv.13	Lv.14	Lv.15
Blood Mist	Enhanced Blood Mist	Ghastly Blood Mist	Blood Surge	Blood Surge
Lv.16	Lv.17	Lv.18	Lv.19	Lv.20
Blood Surge	Blood Surge	Decrepify	Enhanced Decrepify	Abhorrent Decrepify
Lv.21	Lv.22	Lv.23	Lv.24	Lv.25
Death's Embrace	Death's Embrace	Death's Embrace	Amplify Damage	Amplify Damage
Lv.26	Lv.27	Lv.28	Lv.29	Lv.30
Amplify Damage	Corpse Tendrils	Enhanced Corpse Tendrils	Blighted Corpse Tendrils	Corpse Tendrils
Lv.31	Lv.32	Lv.33	Lv.34	Lv.35
Corpse Tendrils	Corpse Tendrils	Corpse Tendrils	Gruesome Mending	Transfusion
Lv.36	Lv.37	Lv.38	Lv.39	Lv.40
Transfusion	Transfusion	Tides of Blood	Tides of Blood	Tides of Blood
Lv.41	Lv.42	Lv.43	Lv.44	Lv.45
Coalesced Blood	Coalesced Blood	Coalesced Blood	Drain Vitality	Drain Vitality
Lv.46	Lv.47	Lv.48	Lv.49	-
Drain Vitality	Bone Storm	Prime Bone Storm	Supreme Bone Storm	-
Renown Skill Points (Lv50 Onwards)
R1	R2	R3	R4	R5
Stand Alone	Stand Alone	Stand Alone	Memento Mori	Memento Mori
R6	R7	R8	R9	R10
Memento Mori	Inspiring Leader	Inspiring Leader	Inspiring Leader	Rathma's Vigor

This is an endgame build and the build will not function efficiently during the leveling stage. We highly recommend using our leveling builds then transitioning to an endgame build at the later stages of the game.

Book of the Dead

Raise Skeleton	→	Warrior (Skirmisher)	Sacrifice
	→	Mage (Bone)	Sacrifice
Golem	→	Bone	Sacrifice

We sacrifice our Warrior Skirmisher for some free critical strike chance. With the Memento Mori passive, this translates to an easy 8% critical strike chance. We also sacrifice Bone Golem for attackspeed and our bone mages for extra overpower damage. It is optional to sacrifice Iron Golem instead for Critical Strike damage but we only recommend doing this if you already have a decent amount of Critical Strike chance in your build.

Aspects and Affixes

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Summary		Skill Progression		Aspects & Affixes
Gems		Vampiric Powers		Paragon

Best Weapons

Weapon	Aspects and Affixes
Dagger	Accelerating Aspect Critical Strikes with Core Skills increase your Attack Speed by (15-25)% for 5 seconds. ・Damage to Close Enemies (Inherent) ・+% Overpower Damage ・% Damage to Close Enemies ・% Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies ・% Damage to Slowed Enemies
Focus	Aspect of Rathma’s Chosen Whenever your Blood Skills Overpower you gain (20-50)% Attack Speed for 4 seconds. ・Cooldown Reduction (Inherent) ・+ Willpower ・+ Maximum Life ・+% Essence Cost Reduction ・Lucky Hit: Chance to restore X% primary resource

Best Armor

Equipment	Aspects and Affixes
Helmet	Aspect of Disobedience You gain (0.25-0.50)% increased Armor for 4 seconds when you deal any form of damage, stacking up to (66)%. ・ +Intelligence ・+ Max HP ・+ Armor ・+ Cooldown Reduction
Chest	Aspect of Shielding Storm Each time that Bone Storm damages an enemy, gain a Barrier equal to (2-5)% of your Base Life for 10 seconds. ・ +Intelligence ・+ Max HP ・+ Armor ・+% Damage Reduction
Gloves	Aspect of Grasping Veins Gain (10-20)% increased Critical Strike Chance for 6 seconds when you cast Corpse Tendrils. You deal (20-40)% bonus Critical Strike Damage to enemies damaged by Corpse Tendrils. ・+Intelligence ・+% Overpower Damage ・+ Attack Speed ・+% Critical Strike Chance
Pants	Tibault's Will You deal 20-40% increased damage while Unstoppable and for 4 seconds after. When you become Unstoppable, gain 50 of your Primary Resource. ・While Injured, Your Potions also Restore 20% resource (Inherent) ・Damage reduction from close enemies ・+ Potion Capacity ・+ Damage ・+% Maximum Resource
Boots	Ghostwalker Aspect While Unstoppable, and for 4 seconds after, you gain (10=25)% increased Movement Speed and can move freely through enemies. ・+ Intelligence ・+% Movement Speed ・+% Essence Cost Reduction ・+ Rank to Corpse Tendrils

Best Jewelry

Amulet	Banished Lord's Talisman ・+ Critical Strike Chance ・+ Overpower Damage ・+ Resource Reduction ・+ Rank to All Core Skills
Ring 1	Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul You automatically activate the following equipped Skills on Corpses around you: Raise Skeleton every 2.0-1.0 seconds. Corpse Explosion every 2.0-1.0 seconds. Corpse Tendrils every 16-8 seconds. ・+ Lucky Hit Chance ・+% Maximum Life ・+% Maximum Essence ・+% Ranks of All Corpse Skills
Ring 2	Aspect of Grasping Veins Gain (10-20)% increased Critical Strike Chance for 6 seconds when you cast Corpse Tendrils. You deal (20-40)% bonus Critical Strike Damage to enemies damaged by Corpse Tendrils. ・+ Max HP ・+% Overpower Damage ・+% Damage to Close Enemies ・+% Critical Strike Chance

Best Gems

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Summary		Skill Progression		Aspects & Affixes
Gems		Vampiric Powers		Paragon

Item Type	Effect Explanation
Royal Ruby (Weapon)	+24.0% Overpower Damage Goes without saying that Ruby will be our main jewelry for our weapons due to the build's focus on Overpower Damage and this gem just makes it better.
Royal Ruby (Armor)	4.0% Maximum Life Ruby gives you max HP which is a more reliable source of defense than the other gem counterpart. This is much more true with the Blood Surge build as Overpower scales with HP!
Royal Diamond (Jewelry)	5.0% Resistance to All Elements Provides all resistance which makes you more durable against any non-physical attacks. Can alternatively be swapped with Skull but Diamond provides more value due to its percentage resistance.

Best Vampiric Powers

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Summary		Skill Progression		Aspects & Affixes
Gems		Vampiric Powers		Paragon

Vampiric Power Cost	Effect Explanation
Ravenous 3 0 0	Lucky Hit: Up to a 20% chance to increase your Attack Speed by 40% of your Total Movement Speed for 6 seconds. We get an insane amount of movement speed due to Tibault's Will and Ghostwalker aspect which we can trigger repeatedly by using our evasion with the Metamorphosis combo. If we get a lucky hit from Ravenous, we can translate that to an insane amount of attack speed occasionally
Blood Boil 0 0 6	When your Core Skills Overpower an enemy, you spawn 3 Volatile Blood Drops. Collecting a Volatile Blood Drop causes it to explode, dealing 60% Physical damage around you. Every 20 seconds, your next Skill is guaranteed to Overpower. Adds one more guaranteed Overpower Proc to our build. This means we can quickly apply an Overpower proc with Rathma's Vigor, 6 Blood Lances, and Blood Boil for three ways to Overpower!
Sanguine Brace 0 1 1	When you kill an enemy, Fortify for 6% of your Base Life. While you have more Fortify than half of your Maximum Life, you gain 8% Critical Strike Chance. A straight up bonus critical strike chance as we'll always be fortified due to the amount of mobs we can kill while always healing to full HP.
Metamorphosis 2 2 2	When you Evade you turn into a cloud of bats, becoming Unstoppable for 4 seconds. Enemies along your path take 160% Physical damage and are inflicted with Vampiric Curse. Applies Vampiric Curse but our main goal is its secondary part of treating enemies with Vampiric Curse as vulnerable. This is our main way of applying Vulnerable in this build and it synergizes well with Tibault's Will and Ghostwalker for free unstoppable status.
Prey on the Weak 2 0 0	You deal 16% increased damage to Vulnerable enemies. Enemies are Vulnerable while affected by a Vampiric Curse from your other Vampiric Powers. Partners well with Metamorphosis. Every enemy you dash into will now take 16% bonus damage!
Total Pacts Required 7 | 3 | 9

List of Vampiric Powers and Pacts Explained

Paragon Board Setup

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Summary		Skill Progression		Aspects & Affixes
Gems		Vampiric Powers		Paragon

Blood Surge Playstyle

Blood Surge Solo Build Tips
ncrease Our DPS Via Overpower DPS is highest Against Enemy Groups Use Corpse Explosion Against Bosses

Increase Our DPS Via Overpower

Blood Surge is a build with a lower DPS than other standard builds with reliable sources of damage multipliers. Unlike these builds, the Blood Surge's damage output comes from its reliable Overpower Damage and all the multipliers for Overpower we can get such as max HP, Fortify, and amplified healing. Make sure to stay Healthy as Overpower damage comes from current HP and Fortify values so managing your health is one of the key component of playing the build.

With the Rathma's Vigor passive, we get a guaranteed Overpower trigger to our skill use every 15 seconds. Make sure to maximize this by using Blood Surge and its echo to double our Overpower damage with that specific skill use! We should also take note of use counter of Supernatural Blood Surge as it also triggers a guaranteed Overpower every 5 uses.

DPS is highest Against Enemy Groups

Our main source of Essence regeneration comes from Reap against multiple enemies and Corpse Explosion against enemies that are few in number. A single Reap can generate insane amounts of Essences as it grants 4 Essence per enemy hit. We make sure to use this skill mainly to strengthen our defenses via the 15% damage reduction but if an opportunity arises and you are in dire need of Essence, use Reap to “reap” those essences from enemy groups. We can also multiply our healing from Blood Surge per cast depending on the number of enemies in the vicinity so in general, the Blood Surge build works best against enemy mob groups.

Time Your Corpse Tendrils

With the Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul equipped, your Corpse Tendrils will automatically cast on Corpses near you. Try to cast your own Corpse Tendrils before or after the ring casts its own Corpse Tendrils to maximize the value of your stuns and disables.

Diablo 4 Related Guides

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Barbarian		Druid		Sorcerer
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Blood Lance (PVE)	Blood Surge (PVE)	Bone Spear (PVE)
Corpse Explosion Blight (PVE)	Infinimist (PVE)	Necromancer Leveling (Leveling)
Ring of Mendeln Summoner (PVE)	Sever Summoner (PVE)